125 years ago
May 19, 1893
C.O. Butler has his shingle mill running now. He expects to cut 125 thousand per day after everything is running all right.
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Three carloads of rails and a steam skidder arrived for W.D. Mack’s logging camp Tuesday, and three carloads of rails and four logging cars Thursday. This completes all the material necessary for the operation of this road. The landing at the foot of the railroad was also completed Thursday.
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The Montesano ball club has laid out grounds in the Renton addition, east of the residence of T.D. Scofield. The field is a fine level one, and will make the best ball ground on the harbor with a little work.
100 years ago
May 17, 1918
Montesano High School sprung the surprise of the day when she won the high school section of the track and field meet held in Elma, May 11th, by the Grays Harbor Athletic Association, by one point. Aberdeen was next with 41 points and Elma last with 39 points. The probable winner was in doubt during the entire meet and when it came to the one-half mile relay it was whoever won that event. Montesano drew the third lane from the pole which made it necessary for us to run much farther than either Elma or Aberdeen. Calder started for Montesano and lost a few yards to both Aberdeen and Elma. Then Wilson, who was practically fresh, lengthened out and gained much of this ground. Phillips, third man, ran as he never ran before despite a very sore ankle that prohibited him running in any other events. He kept his own, and touched F. Perkins who started out about even with Parker of Elma, with the Aberdeen man in the lead several yards. The race was between the later two and proved the most exciting of the meet. Perkins finally finished a foot or two in the lead, giving Montesano the event and the meet, and holding her reputation for winning every relay in the county meet held since 1915.
75 years ago
May 20, 1943
This is a big week in the lives of a big graduating class. Thirty-nine youths, one-third more than last year, are being honored this week, informally by relatives and friends, and formal honors will begin Sunday evening at 8 when they gather in the high school auditorium for a baccalaureate program for graduates from Montesano high school.
Rev. Thomas Lewis, pastor of St. Mary’s Episcopal mission here, will deliver the main address on the subject, “Living All Your Life.”
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A display of airplane models has been arranged in the windows of the Montesano Hardware Company which have been made by high school boys in the manual training class, according to Harry C. Latimer. Several models are of the large 4-motor bomber type, others are of light fighter types being used by the army and navy.
The models are all painted black in order to give a “silhouette” effect because the models will soon be used for instructing aircraft observers.
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“I got a liking for travel when in Monte, where I was paper boy for a city daily for 3 1/2 years and during that time won two trips, one to the world’s fair at San Francisco and another time to Canada,” said Harold F. Osborne, last week upon returning from a three months’ trip which took him to every state west of the Mississippi except Nevada. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. George Osborne and the family now lives in Aberdeen
50 years ago
May 16, 1968
Twin resignations by the Montesano basketball and wrestling coaches came as a surprise this last week to school officials. Neither Don Hughes nor Mike Poitras will be at Montesano High School next September.
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Airman Julia R. Whiting, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George W. Whiting, of Rt. 1, Elma, has been graduated from a U.S. Air Force technical school at Sheppard AFB, Tex.
She was trained as a medical specialist and has been assigned to a unit of the USAF Headquarters Command at Andrews AFB. Md.
The airman is a graduate of Elma High School.
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The big room from the Satsop school went on a field trip May 8, to visit the historical museum. Those furnishing cars were Mr. McFarlen, the room teacher, Mrs. Ray Hinkkanen, Mrs. Lee Stover, Mrs. Joe Metcalf and Mrs. Ray Scott, some of the parents of the pupils.
25 years ago
May 20, 1993
Empire Airlines came to Grays Harbor last Sunday and a good many Harborites turned out to welcome the new commuter service that will connect Grays Harbor with Astoria, Portland and SeaTac, with eight flights daily from Bowerman Field, four to Portland and an equal number to SeaTac. Diane Root, wife of Port Commissioner Jack Root, who was on hand Sunday to greet the new service, purchased the first ticket on the airline. It was noted that if there are no passengers for a scheduled flight, the aircraft will not land. There will be five flights from Bowerman on Saturdays and Sundays.
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Montesano native Dionne Gatlin recently served as a Senate page for one week in Olympia. Sponsored by Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam. Gatlin, age 17, learned how the Legislature is organized into two legislative bodies, which consider legislation through a system of committees.
Gatlin, daughter of Don and Janet Gatlin, attends Montesano Jr./Sr. High School, where she is a senior.
Each year approximately 280 young people, age 14-17, participate in the page program.
10 years ago
May 15, 2008
To Alice (Cox) Large, family meant everything.
The 96-year-old granddaughter of Abraham Boyer, considered the father of the little burg of Porter in the eastern reaches of Grays Harbor County, asked before she died last November in San Jose, Calif., that her three children would see that her ashes were brought home. Mrs. Large was born in 1911 to Myrtle Mary (Boyer) and beekeeper William Linkous Cox at their farmhouse on the banks of Porter Creek, near where it becomes one with the Chehalis River.
Mrs. Large’s ashes were interred last week near the final resting place of her parents and a host of other relatives in the little Sharon Cemetery, just a mile or so from where her childhood home had been. Last Saturday, almost four dozen relatives, including her two sons and her daughter, others meeting for the first time, gathered to celebrate her life in the little church on the hill that Mrs. Large’s grandfather helped build more than a century ago. Then a Methodist church, today it’s known as the Porter Sunday School. Kinfolk, some in their 80s, the youngest only 10 months, came from as far away as New Hampshire, Arizona, California and British Columbia; others still live nearby.
